Two of the three new trappers were still sitting beside the fire, clearly hoping that somehow this trouble would all go away.
Will knew that hope was futile. Druke wasn’t going to back down, especially when the third man was on his feet, glaring defiantly at him and babbling something about the law and rights.
Like that meant a hill of beans to a renegade like Druke.
Will heard a whisper beside him, the sound an arrow made coming out of a soft buckskin quiver, then the faint creak of a bowstring. He smiled in the darkness, knowing what was coming next. His hands tightened on his rifle.
Down below in the camp, Druke thrust out the pistol in his hand and made some sort of dramatic pronouncement.
The next instant, several things occurred so close together they seemed to blend into one. The bowstring twanged, Druke’s gun roared as the arrow skewered the fleshy part of his upper arm, knocking off his aim, the pistol ball plowed harmlessly into the ground, and Druke let out a howl of pain.
In the next heartbeat, Will Gardner rose up on his knees and snapped the flintlock to his shoulder. He drew a bead while Druke’s men still stood around with their mouths hanging open in shock at what had happened to their leader. Will pressed the rifle’s trigger. It boomed and belched fire and smoke, and down below, one of Druke’s men cried out and fell as the ball tore through his right thigh.
Another arrow hummed through the air and embedded itself in a man’s shoulder. He clawed at the shaft and screamed as he staggered to the side.
Not seeming to hurry but not wasting any time, either, Will set his empty rifle aside and drew the brace of pistols he carried behind his belt. He cocked them, aimed, and fired in two widely spaced directions as Druke’s men began to scatter. One of the renegades pitched forward on his face as a ball hit him in the calf and knocked the leg out from under him. Another spun around from the impact of the shot that grazed his ribs.
“It’s Gardner and that damned Indian!” Druke bellowed. “Get ’em!”
Will and his friend were already fading back into the shadows behind the rock. Will heard one of the men say urgently, “We gotta get out of here, Jebediah! Those two are like ghosts! We can’t kill what we can’t see!”
Will didn’t expect Druke to agree with that, but for the first time in their skirmishes the big outlaw was wounded himself. It made him leery of continuing the fight, and after a second, Druke shouted, “Grab the wounded men! Let’s go!”
“Do we allow them to flee?” The question was whispered into Will’s ear.
“Seeing as how they still outgun us, I reckon we’d better.”
“I’ll make sure they really leave.”
Before Will could argue, his companion was gone, vanishing into the night in the blink of an eye. Will knew he ought to be used to that by now, but the suddenness of it still startled him. He figured it probably always would.
Druke and his men made plenty of racket as they crashed through the brush. They would be easy to follow.
Will quickly reloaded his rifle and pistols, then circled to approach the camp.
The three trappers were all on their feet, holding their rifles and standing with their backs to the fire so they could peer out into the darkness and search for any more threats. Will could have killed all three of them before they even knew what was happening to them.
They would learn, he told himself.
They would either learn . . . or die.
He stayed in the shadows so that if they got trigger-happy and tried to shoot him, they wouldn’t be able to see where he was. Raising his voice, he called, “Howdy. Take it easy now, boys. I’m a friend.”
CHAPTER 5
The three trappers turned quickly toward him. In the firelight, their eyes were big and bright with fear. They searched the darkness, looking for somebody to shoot.
“Hold your fire,” Will told them. “I mean you no harm.”
Visibly shaken by Druke’s attempt to shoot him, John Burton said gruffly, “Who are you? Show yourself !”
“I will if you promise to take your fingers off those triggers.”
“I don’t trust him.” Carl Pennington shook his head. “It’s probably a trick.”
“It’s not a trick,” Will said, keeping his voice calm and level. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll step out where you can see me, and I’ll have my hands in the air so you can see that I’m not trying to pull anything funny. Just don’t shoot me, all right? I’d hate to have saved you from Jebediah Druke only to get ventilated in the process.”
“So you know him.” Burton looked like he’d just bitten into a lemon. “You know Druke?”
“I know who he is.” Will slung his rifle over his shoulder and moved forward, keeping his empty hands raised to shoulder level. “I know he’s the meanest renegade west of the Mississippi. I know he would have killed all three of you fellas if my partner hadn’t put an arrow in his arm.”
“I did see an arrow in Druke’s arm,” Mitchell, the third trapper said. “I think this young fella’s telling the truth.”
Will had reached the firelight’s edge. They could see him, and visibly relaxed when they realized that he wasn’t holding any weapons.
“My name’s Will Gardner,” he told them. “I’m a trapper, just like you boys.”
Sour-faced, Burton said grudgingly, “I guess you can put your hands down. You must be the one who helped us.”
“My partner and I,” Will corrected.
“You’re alone,” Pennington said. “Where’s this partner of yours?”
“Gone to make sure Druke and his bunch don’t try to double back and cause more trouble.”
“Who is he?” Mitchell asked. “Druke, I mean. The man looked as big as a bear.”
“And twice as mean,” Will said with a smile. He lowered his hands. “You fellas might want to go ahead and eat your supper, then put that fire out. It’ll get cold up here by morning, but better to be a little chilly than dead.”
“We thought it was safe,” Mitchell pointed out. “We were told the Indians weren’t a threat around here.”
“They’re not. But there are worse things than Indians.”
“There’s some coffee in the pot. I’m Enos Mitchell, by the way.” Mitchell introduced his companions.
“Pleased to meet you.” Will hunkered next to the fire and took the tin cup that Mitchell handed to him. He filled it with coffee and sipped the strong, black brew while the three men ate. He kept his gaze away from the flames and looked all around the camp. Staring into a fire was the quickest way for a man to lose any night vision he might have.
“This man Druke is a brigand?” Burton asked.
“You could say that. I’d say that he’s a no-good varmint. He showed up in King’s Crown about eight months ago with three or four friends who were just about as bad as he is. The valley was full of trappers back then. Most of ’em got along pretty well, because this area is one of the richest for beaver in the mountains. Plenty to go around for everybody.
“But there were bad eggs already here, and they drifted into Druke’s bunch as time went on. When he got enough men to back his play, he started trying to take over. He’s run out probably half the men who were here to start with. Stolen their pelts, roughed ’em up, and sent ’em packing.” Will took another sip of the coffee. “The ones who tried to fight back . . . well, they just sort of disappeared.” He gave a meaningful nod. “Like you boys would have tonight, more than likely.”
“If you and your friend hadn’t saved us, you mean,” Mitchell said. “How did you manage that, just the two of you against seven men?”
“We took them by surprise. Gray Otter and I decided we weren’t going to knuckle under to Druke. We weren’t going to run out, and we weren’t going to let him kill us, either. We decided early on to take the fight to him, and we’ve learned the only way to do it is to hit him hard and fast when he’s not expecting it, and then get out before he can do anything about it.”
“And ye
t you’re sitting here calmly drinking coffee,” Burton said.
“We did more damage tonight than usual,” Will explained. “Druke and his men will need to go off and lick their wounds before they coming hunting more trouble. Anyway, we’re fixing to move, all of us, as soon as you finish eating. You need to put out this fire, pack up your possibles, and find yourselves another camp at least a mile from here.”
“But this is a good campsite,” Burton protested.
“And Druke knows where it is now,” Will pointed out in a mild voice.
“Mr. Gardner’s right. Finish up, boys, so we can get a move on.” Mitchell turned to Will. “You say your partner is tracking Druke and his men?”
“That’s what Gray Otter started out doing. Must’ve been obvious that Druke wasn’t coming back tonight, though, because for the past couple minutes he’s been standing over there behind you.”
The trappers exclaimed in surprise as they looked around quickly and saw the slender, buckskin-clad figure standing in the shadows with an arrow nocked to bowstring.
“It’s all right, Gray Otter,” Will said as he made several elaborate gestures. “These gentlemen realize now that we’re all friends here.” He added to the trappers, “Sign language. Gray Otter doesn’t understand English.”
That was a lie, of course, but one that came in handy at times.
Gray Otter signed back to Will, who told the trappers, “Druke and his bunch have some cabins about five miles from here, close to some of the mountains. That’s where they’ve headed. They’ll spend the rest of the night patching up their wounds and getting drunk, more than likely.”
Burton asked, “What would have happened if your friend had come back here and found you in trouble?”
“Well”—Will smiled—“Gray Otter’s pretty good at moving around without anybody knowing he’s there. He was behind you, remember, with an arrow ready to fire.”
Pennington shuddered. “I’m glad that you persuaded us that you’re friendly and that we didn’t do anything foolish.”
“So am I, Mr. Pennington,” Will said, still smiling. “So am I.”
Jebediah Druke felt like he was on fire inside, not from any physical pain, but rather from anger. Pure, white-hot rage . . . although that hole in his arm where the redskin’s arrow had skewered him hurt like hell.
It hadn’t done any lasting damage, though. The arrow’s flint head had missed the bone and torn through skin and muscle. The first thing Druke had done once they were clear of the trappers’ camp was to snap the shaft and pull it the rest of the way out of his arm.
Once they had gotten back to the collection of run-down cabins he had grandiloquently dubbed Fort Druke, he had soaked a rag in corn liquor and used a ramrod to run it through the hole. He had followed that with several healthy slugs of the whiskey down his gullet to dull the fiery agony.
“Bind it up tight,” he told Sam Turner, who was tying a bandage around Druke’s wounded arm. They sat at a rough-hewn table in Druke’s cabin. A candle guttered and smoked in the middle of the table, next to the jug of whiskey. “I want to be able to use it just like it wasn’t hurt.”
“I don’t know if you’re gonna be able to do that, Jebediah,” Turner said. “That arrow took out a pretty good chunk of meat.”
Druke flexed his fingers and ignore the pain that caused in his arm. “It still works,” he rasped. “That’s all that matters. I can still hold a damned gun and pull the trigger.”
“I reckon so,” Turner admitted. He had come out of the fight at the trappers’ camp uninjured, one of the few men in the group to do so.
Druke had thought about gathering up the rest of the men and returning to the camp right away to seek vengeance. Some of the men who’d been wounded were hurt pretty bad, though, and needed quite a bit of attention. It might be better to bide his time, he had decided.
But he wouldn’t forget what had happened. No way in hell would he forget. Those three trappers would pay.
And so would Will Gardner and that damned redskin of his.
As if he’d been reading his leader’s mind, Turner said, “You really think it was Gardner and Gray Otter who jumped us, Jebediah?”
“Who else? They’re the only ones in King’s Crown who’ve got the sand to try something like that. If I’d known how much trouble they were gonna be, I’d have killed them first, before we ever made a move on anybody else.”
“Who could’ve figured it? A green kid and a half-pint Injun. Didn’t seem like they’d be anything for us to worry about.”
“But they’ve hit us a dozen times, damn their eyes.” Druke moved his bound arm around a little to make sure it worked and then nodded in satisfaction. He used that arm to reach for the jug again. “I’m tired of this. Those two got to die.”
“Yeah, but they always slip away like they ain’t even there. You know how many times we’ve tried to trail ’em, and they always throw us off the scent.”
Druke took a swallow from the uncorked jug, thumped it down on the table again, and wiped the back of his other hand across his mouth. He glowered. “I know somebody who can find ’em. Find ’em and kill ’em.”
Turner’s eyes widened. His whiskery face went a little pale under its leathery, permanent tan. “Jebediah, you ain’t talkin’ about—”
“I sure am,” Druke interrupted. “And you’re gonna go find him and bring him to me, Sam.”
Sheer terror twisted Turner’s features.
Druke clenched his right hand into a fist, making pain radiate up his wounded arm. He reveled in it, drew strength from it. “Bring me Blood Eye.”
CHAPTER 6
The trading post was called Voertmann’s and was run by a Dutchman, as many of the frontier establishments were. The proprietor was known far and wide as Papa Voertmann. He was fat, jolly, and sported a bushy white beard to go with his bald head. According to Preacher’s friend Audie, who was a well-educated man, having been a professor before he came west to take up fur trapping, Papa Voertmann was the spitting image of a character from Dutch folklore called Sinter Klaus, the personification of the spirit of Christmas.
But you couldn’t always go by appearances. Papa Voertmann would cut your throat if he thought you were trying to cheat him out of a nickel and laugh that booming laugh of his while he was doing it. People on the frontier had learned not to cross him.
Mama Voertmann, his skinny, prune-faced wife, was even worse. Most mountain men, after spending months in the Rockies, were hungry for the sight of a white woman, any white woman. A smile and a kind word from her would do wonders for their morale. They never got either of those things from Mama Voertmann. In fact, if they got on her bad side, they were liable to get a knife in the ribs.
Despite referring to each other as Papa and Mama, they had no children that anybody had ever heard anything about, although it was possible there were Voertmann offspring back in Europe that they never mentioned.
Papa kept several sawed-off, double-barreled shotguns stashed around the sprawling trading post, which was also part tavern, so that one of the weapons was almost always within reach. Any time a fight broke out, he didn’t discriminate between the man who started it and the one who was defending himself. He just grabbed one of those shotguns and let loose with a double load of rock salt. The salt wouldn’t kill a man, but it hurt like hell and generally put him on the ground.
That gave Mama time to break out her pistols, and if the combatants caused any more trouble, she would take more drastic action.
Because of that, things tended to stay pretty peaceful at Voertmann’s. It was a good trading post, well-stocked, with fair prices, and hardly anybody ever went blind from drinking the busthead whiskey Papa brewed up.
Preacher reined Horse to a stop in front of the big log building. The pack horse trailing behind him obediently halted as well. Dog bounded up onto the porch while Preacher swung down from the saddle. “Stay,” he told the big cur. “You know Mama and Papa don’t allow no dogs in there. You t
ry it and they’re liable to skin you and cook you up.”
Dog’s pink tongue lolled out of his mouth. He didn’t look impressed. He had taken on bears, wolves, catamounts, even an enraged bull moose, not to mention numerous men who had been trying to do harm to Preacher. He wasn’t scared of a fat Dutchie and his harridan of a wife.
Preacher wasn’t scared of the Voertmanns, either, but he respected their rules. As Audie had explained it once, barbarians and other men who lived far beyond the raw edge of civilization tended to be polite, because being rude could get them killed in a hurry.
Preacher looped the reins of both horses around a hitch rack. Several other horses were tied up there, which wasn’t unusual. The Voertmanns did a pretty steady business. The trading post was located on the rolling plains at the confluence of two streams, and it was only about sixty miles away from the beaver-rich valley known as King’s Crown, so a lot of trappers came through there.
A young man matching William Pendexter’s description had been seen at Voertmann’s by a trapper who was in St. Louis to sell his plews. The young man had been looking for a good place to do some trapping, and somebody had told him about King’s Crown. Reportedly, he had headed in that direction when he left the trading post.
The problem was, that had been almost a year earlier. Anything might have happened to William since then, and probably had.
After their argument, Barnabas Pendexter’s stiff-necked pride had kept him from looking for his son for a while. His delay had been a dreadful mistake.
Preacher had serious doubts that he would ever find William. The young man was probably dead. The wilderness tended to swallow up the unfortunate as if they had never been there.
Preacher stepped into the trading post’s dim interior, onto the puncheon floor. Shelves made of thick, rough-sawn planks were arranged haphazardly around the big room. With no ceiling, the massive beams that supported the roof were visible. Traps and tack hung from pegs on the walls, as did clothing and buffalo robes. Barrels of salt, flour, sugar, pickles, and crackers stood along the side wall to the right. At the rear of the room was a counter formed by planks lying across more barrels.
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